Follow my regular Sunday postings illustrating past and present stock photos I've seen, shot and sold… and for some insight into why and how I thought they would turn into extra income! There will be a few surprises – not least to myself – but you will quickly realize that there are actually no real surprises when it comes to profitable stock photography. Not only can any image sell if the right market is found… but markets can be found before images are even created in the camera. All it takes is a searching eye and an inquisitive mind… so read on, learn and enjoy ~ Ed Buziak.

#70 Check out those rabbits

Every other weekday morning when I check my account on the Alamy website – to see if there have been any overnight sales or payments registered – I sometimes have a quick read of the current topics on the Alamy forum (for contributors to that stock image agency) to see what new market trends may be taking place or if someone needs a plant or vehicle image identifying, whatever… general interest stuff.

Often, there is talk about far-flung exotic locations, or where certain photographers are planning to travel to next in order to shoot “different” stock for their expanding portfolios of images. And it occurred to me that in the past five years in France I’ve basically been nowhere. OK, I’ve visited chateaux and villages in the region within, say, a maximum of an hour’s drive away from where I have always been based. And the odd thing is that those further locations I’ve visited have proven to be, despite their attractiveness and tourist appeal, have not been regular sellers. In fact, if I look at all my image sales for the past five years probably 80% were shot locally, or within walking or easy cycling distance from where I live, and of those more than half were shot in my study, kitchen, garden or out of my window onto the street… in other words “on my doorstep”.

There are a number of very successful photographers with Alamy – usually noticeable by their absence from the Forum – who, like me much of the time, shoot locally and rarely run out of subject matter requiring them to venture further afield. An example of this is the highly talented Keith Morris of Aberystwyth, a university and holidaymakers town on the Welsh coast, who is one of the top most successful news and stock photographers with Alamy. He achieves multiple sales daily by being on and in the local scene morning, noon and night… and if there is nothing going on he creates something by engaging with people, both locals and holidaymakers, by getting them to wave whilst they ride the on the dodgems, or dodging waves whilst they walk on the prom.

I’m not in Keith’s league (I’m also getting a bit too old for this game) but I do try to adopt his attitude of sourcing and shooting images locally with widespread potential usage. The above shot of caged rabbits – they were being bred for the farmer’s kitchen and dinner table – was taken in a neighbours allotment. A simple subject typifying rural life, not just here in France but in many other European countries… so much so that it was licensed yesterday for use in a Czechoslovakian monthly magazine under my “Farming Today” pseudonym. Again, a local shot of nothing exotic, but finding a use in a country on the other side of Europe.